Throwing Miller and Libby Overboard is Not Enough

So the New York Times has finally decided to throw Judy Miller overboard. The lambasting that began with Bill Keller's memo and continued with Maureen Dowd's column, has now culminated with Byron Calame's Public Editor column. But everything the Times is now castigating Miller for was well known, or easily knowable, weeks and months ago when the paper was lionizing her as the Joan of Sag Harbor.

Her horrendous coverage of WMD and her all-elbows style of dealing with her colleagues -- which now so offends Times' sensibilities -- were not only tolerated, but encouraged.

You could get whiplash reading the New York Times these days. After all, it was less than a month ago when Judy Miller was released from jail and whisked off by Arthur Sulzberger to the Ritz Carlton for a steak and a martini "served in a gorgeous glass." The paper that was even scooped on covering her release was feting and celebrating her.

Now the Times has clearly turned on the woman its editorial page had painted as a modern-day Rosa Parks. Ridding the Times of Judy is a good start, but the Times' problems are bigger than Ms. Run Amok. In the same way that however hard the White House tries (and as Josh Marshall points out, it's trying very, very hard) to turn Libby into Mr. Run Amok, it will not succeed in pinning it all on Scooter. The crisis at the New York Times is about much more than Judy Miller, and the crisis at the White House is about much more than Scooter Libby.